Google has said a rise in lawsuits against the US company in Europe come from “misinterpretations” of how online advertising works.
A spokesperson told the Belgian agency Belga yesterday that cases were “opportunistic” and based on a misunderstanding of the system that connects publishers with advertisers and sets prices for online ads.
The comment followed a Paris ruling ordering Google to pay just over €20 million today to the Belgian media group Rossel.
It accused Google of placing itself between publishers and advertisers in a way that, it said, reduced the value publishers received. Google noted that “the court rejected the vast majority of the excessive claims” but said it disagreed with the decision and would appeal.
Rossel had sought €832 million, using calculations prepared with British multinational professional services network Deloitte, for alleged losses between 2014 and 2030.
The court accepted only a small part of this estimate. Rossel said the ruling nonetheless confirmed that Google’s conduct had caused harm.
The dispute comes as legal and regulatory pressure on large technology companies continues to grow across Europe.
The European Union has expanded its digital rulebook during the past decade. It has adopted laws on data protection, online safety, competition and cyber-security.
The result is a dense framework that is difficult for specialists to navigate. For instance, researchers at the Centre for Economic Policy Research wrote today that the European Commission’s latest proposal, known as the Digital Omnibus, is an attempt to merge and clarify parts of this system so businesses can understand what is required of them.
The researchers said simplification was reasonable, as smaller companies face rising compliance costs. But they also noted that several civil-society groups warn the proposal could weaken existing protections for people’s rights online.
The European Ombudsman has already flagged concerns about the way the EC prepared the draft law.
Industry groups, such as the Computer and Communications Industry Association ( CCIA) , which represents digital-sector companies in the EU, wrote a few days ago that political disagreements had repeatedly blocked previous attempts to simplify EU digital rules.
The association hosted a meeting in Brussels where founders and technology companies said that inconsistent enforcement across member states had created uncertainty for businesses.
CCIA Europe described the new proposal as only a first step but said that rejecting it would leave the current complex situation unchanged. It argued that companies had been patient with Europe’s regulatory system but that “patience has reached its limit”.
These tensions come as Brussels continues to examine the conduct of the largest platforms. The EC recently opened new inquiries into Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
Officials say the aim is to prevent such companies that act as key gateways to online services from using their position in ways that disadvantages competitors or publishers.
Meanwhile, the EC also said today it had opened a new probe into Google to assess whether the company used material published by media outlets and other creators to train and run its AI services without proper compensation.
The EC said it would examine whether Google may have distorted competition by setting unfair conditions for publishers or by giving itself preferential access to their work.
